Like many mishaps with Ryanair the adverse headlines don't come from the incident (which may well have been handled correctly by the crew?), but the appalling treatment of distressed and injured passengers after the event.

It's been a while now, but I spent an extremely uncomfortable night at Lyon St-Exupťry after an emergency landing of a Paris-Jo'burg A340 at around midnight, and that was Air France - the national carrier at one of the major national airports! No information, no food (meal had not been served), stuck in a departure gate lounge overnight with nowhere to sleep (except for business class passengers), every man for himself the next day to try and reach the destination.

Probably couldn't go into FRA squawking 7700 due to the 2300 local noise curfew, right?

Actually, aircraft are allowed to land after curfew at FRA for technical or safety reasons so maybe they went to Hahn for maintenance or commercial considerations.

Quote:

2.6 Exemptions

2.6.1 The following flights are exempt from the operational restrictions according to clauses 2.1 to 2.5:

2.6.1.1 Landings of aircraft approaching Frankfurt/Main Airport as alternate aerodrome for meteorological, technical or other safety reasons as well as take-offs and landings of aircraft rendering medical assistance or on missions in disasters, as well as evacuation flights.

Probably went to Hahn as it's one of their bases but do feel for the passengers, haven't been there for a while but if it's still as I remember it facilities are better at Duxford resoration hangars, not to mention it's in the middle of nowhere! Not a very good place to find oneself after an emergency.... and being in the care of Ryanair puts the lid on the pan!

I donít know the full facts of this case just as Iím sure many others commenting donít, but I do sense an element of Ryanair-bashing for the sake of it.

Having been to Hahn as pax it seems really not that bad an option in the circumstances. Itís only ďin the middle of nowhereĒ in the context of it being about 90 mins from Frankfurt. There are towns and small cities quite close by, and crucially hospitals.

The thing is, itís all well and good to mention Metz and Saarbrucken as alternatives but I doubt they have a glut of spare rooms either, on top of that FR have no crew, maintenance and support. Yes Iím sure it is convenient for the airline, but on balance it also seems a nearby and practical option for the crew under difficult circumstances.

The airframe in question appears to be 7 year old EI-ENM. These FR airframes certainly get around. It's amazing how they keep full tabs on them. How many 738s now - 444? I hope they never let it become 666

According to FR24 data for EI-ENM, (which as per usual does currently contain one or two spurious entries), this airframe is perhaps nothing less than typical in that it would appear to have flown every single day in the last 3 months bar 2 spent offline at Stansted back in April. For the 14 nights prior to the incident which occurred when it was en route to Zadar on the last sector of the day, the aircraft had been based and/or overnighted in Zadar after arriving mostly after 2300 and leaving mostly before 0700 each day. Again not unusual is that excluding the two days offline, it has averaged approx. 5 sectors per day over the last 3 months, and 7 per day whilst operating out of Zadar. On three days it seems to have done 8 sectors starting the day and ending it at Zadar including the day of the incident... I bet some airlines wished they were as busy, eh?
. In the last three months, excluding a few one-off single nights at other destinations, EI-ENM seems to have been based and/or overnighted at Bratislava (6 consecutive nights), Stansted (20 nights which included the 2 days offline 23-24 April), Pafos (2 nights), Tenerife (7 nights), East Midlands (13 nights), Alicante (2 nights), Cork (2 nights), Stansted again (2 nights), Luga (7 nights), Brussels (6 nights), Zadar (14 nights) in that order (all numbers given are for consecutive nights).

A while ago a Virgin Blue 737 descended rapidly because the crew thought that the aircraft was depressurising through cracks in the windscreen. They closed the outflow valve and went to 10,000í. When they got to 10 they realised they had overpressurised and opened the outflow valve. The sudden pressure release had a similar effect on some of the pax.